This is the 6th episode of our podcast series featuring Ingvild Bjornvold, a strategic consultant with Social Solutions.   Hear Ingvild's insights on the implementation of ETO Software process and success stories of organizations who have done well.  

Have a suggestion for a future podcast?  Or want to remark upon today's conversation?  Send us your feedback in our comments section!

Hats off to ... well, us. 

Social Solutions was recently named to Inc Magazine's list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the country.  CEO Matt Schubert said it best,

“Our success can be attributed not only to our dedication to strategic growth but also by our whole-hearted belief in what we do, striving to increase the effectiveness of the nonprofit industry one organization at a time.”

We couldn't say it better ourselves.  Read more about the award here.

Marc Pitman, a fundraising consultant and author of The Extrememe Fundraising Blog, posed an interesting question on his LinkedIn page — as a donor, what do nonprofits do that annoy you?  Answers range from not sending address labels in direct marketing campaigns to don’t try to guilt someone to giving over the phone.  Read the responses here.  While some responders simply listed off a handful of what some might consider minute details (don’t call at dinnertime, for example), there are some underlying issues addressed.

One person talked about the lack of engagement from the organization — the communication is in form letters, there is no genuine thank-you.  And because of this disconnect, the person felt that they were not a true part of the movement.

We all know the donor-charity relationship is crucial to providing services to help those in need.  Why not make the donor feel empowered? Just as we should with our volunteers, our employees, and the communities we serve.  Give them the chance to see how their $10, $100, or $1000 donation is being used.  Whether they appreciate the market ploy or not, they might just be impressed by your org and no longer bothered by the ringing phone at dinnertime.  

This is the fifth episode of our podcast series featuring Felix Rouse, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark. Hear Felix's thoughts on the importance of measuring efforts and how ETO Software is helping the organization to improve service delivery and increase funding.

The Wall Street Journal today brings to light something we stand behind every single day: donor empowerment. Organizations we’ve seen many times – Kiva, DonorsChoose, and GlobalGiving are applauded for their efforts that give donors the ability to call the shots on where money should be allocated and spent among nonprofits and charities. Even though Warren Buffett did it bigger and better, it’s still important for donors to recognize where their money is going and who and what is it supporting, possibly attaching some strings.  While, we agree with the article that money with restrictions (ie: only to be used for one specific program) is not always the most effective, the idea of donors holding organizations accountable and expecting them to be able to show the impact of the donation, is.

We too applaud organizations that encourage this behavior and donors who are walking the same line.

donor, Kiva, Donors Choose, Global Giving, Warren Buffett, accountability, nonprofit, charity

Be sure to check out tomorrow's webinar featuring Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark's Felix Rouse and Mike Sancho discussing their use of ETO Software® to affect social change and gain funding by effectively measuring and reporting outcomes.

Click here for more details.  And for some background on Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark, check out this great customer spotlight!

The Boys and Girls Club of Newark (BGCN), in operation for nearly 70 years, has more than 3,300 registered members, and it served over 12,500 youth in 2006 through a combination of outreach activities, after-school programs and summer camps. The mission of the Boys and Girls Club of Newark is to provide opportunities to youth that empower them to succeed and excel as contributing members of society. This will be accomplished by providing a safe environment, under the direction of caring and trained adults, where programs will develop their life-skills, values, character and leadership, thereby helping them realize their individual potential.

ETO Motivations
BGCA adopted the Enterprise version of Social Solutions’ ETO Software™ as part of the organization’s nationwide initiative to measure outcomes, improve service quality and demonstrate internal quality controls. BGCN began leveraging ETO as a means to evaluate which of its programs – and how many of them – were being used by BGCN members.  The organization also sought to use ETO as a tool to report to funders on good work being done, in the hopes that a thorough analysis of efforts and outcomes would increase the organization’s impacts on the lives of young people.  

Lessons and Achievements
Once BGCN staff put ETO to work, they were able to analyze the organization’s 40+ program offerings, which were then offered on a drop-in basis to all BGCN members. ETO enabled BGCN to track program attendance for each of the thousands of youths served annually – how many children come each year, how many take advantage of each program, per-youth program enrollment, and correlations between program enrollment and attendance.   

One particular factor stuck out in BGCN’s enrollment data – that more than half of youths attending the centers were enrolled in one program or less.  Concerned that Clubs were being used more for socialization than for their life-enhancing programs, BGCN leadership changed their membership policies to require that each member be enrolled in at least three programs.  ETO enabled BGCN to monitor the impact of this program change, tracking enrollment, individual schedules and program histories, youths not in compliance with program enrollment requirements, and programs with best and worst attendance records.  

This new policy helps the club focus on helping young people lead more productive lives, and the results to date have been quite positive.  The Newark club has been recognized by the BCGA national office for its cutting-edge use of ETO, and the club’s CEO has spoken about the value of ETO at the annual BGCA national conference. The funding community has embraced BGCN’s outcome measurement, and BGCN reports increased funding as well as increased respect in its community.

Success Hurdles
BGCN had begun in recent years to focus more intently on ways to capture outcomes beyond simple “how much, how many served” statistics.  To that end, BGCN developed outcome logic measurement models for all of its 40+ programs offered annually.  What they needed was a tool to put the logic models to work to affect program improvement – and in ETO, they found what they were looking for.  

Implementation wasn’t immediate, but it was steady, as staff adoption and buy-in increased over time. An initial barrier to success came simply from the time and cultural changes required to get day-to-day employees and volunteers at the Newark BGCA accustomed to using ETO beyond tracking demographic information.  Other staffers reported challenges in identifying milestones to be used in measuring adoption.  

Looking Forward
BGCN is looking forward to the next milestone in its ETO adoption: full implementation.  At the same time, BGCN is embarking, with help from its funders, on an ambitious study of the effectiveness of its program offerings.  Through ETO, BGCN is going to track two groups of middle school-age children over a three year period – one group of youths required to attend weekly programs across 5 core program areas, and another control group without specific program requirements.

Program attendance and progress milestones will be tracked for each youth, and results will be compared annually and at the study’s end.  If, as BGCN predicts, success milestones are greater for young people with more stringent program requirements, BGCN will use its data to support changes to focus on programs with proven success rates – and to secure funding to support those changes.

An interesting survey from the Corporation for National and Community Service found that just over one quarter of Americans, nearly 61 million people, volunteered in their communities in 2007.  These volunteers gave 8.1 billion hours of service worth an estimated $158 billion in terms of volunteer-worth.    

Perhaps the best news is that after a six percent decline in total volunteers between 2005 and 2006, volunteering levels stabilized in 2007.  And there were one million more volunteers in 2007 than 2002.

The survey didn't find all was good when it comes to Americans and their time giving back to their communities, however.  One third of those who volunteered in 2006 did not continue to do so in 2007, raising concerns that volunteers are losing interest, are not encouraged to remain with the organization or are feeling burned out.

Despite positive news that volunteer levels are increasing from previous years, there is still much work to be done.  What should organizations do to keep volunteers interested?  Are you encouraged by the results of this study?    

This is the fourth episode of our podcast series featuring Vince Griffith, Vice President of Social Solutions.  The discussion includes Vince's insight on performance management, including best practices, the challenges facing organizations, and ETO Blueprints.

For this week’s post, we’re featuring the efforts of the Motion Picture & Television Fund to more effectively enhance the quality of life of those they serve

The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) is the entertainment industry’s foremost resource for help and care in Southern California. MPTF provides child care, retirement care, inpatient and outpatient social services, and wellness programs to individuals who work in entertainment as well as their families, colleagues, and friends. It’s most visible service is the retirement community it has continuously operated for 84 years.

MPTF needed to move beyond counting contacts to measuring overall impact and effect on constituents’ quality of life. They also needed to specifically optimize the success and support of a critical program, the Relocation Stress Program, which helps constituents successfully transition from independent living to living in a retirement community, assisted living facility, or long-term care facility.

While MPTF staff eagerly embraced the transformation to an outcomes-based paradigm, board members needed to be sold on the value of looking beyond numbers to improved lives. Also, the subjective, “human” nature of the organization’s work made outcomes difficult to quantify.

After two years, MPTF has compiled enough information to demonstrate in a quantitative manner the positive impact its programs have on people’s lives, health, and quality of life. While board members and other supporters may still struggle to understand the underlying theory, the reports make the impact of programs very clear.

The Relocation Stress Program now clearly demonstrates its value. ETO Software has been leveraged to increase funding for individual programs (including the Relocation Stress Program) as well as for the organization. MPTF is now helping other organizations make the transition to an outcomes-based paradigm to better demonstrate the effectiveness of human services programs.

Here, Odile Swift comments on the MPTF's implementation of ETO and the organization's outlook on effectiveness. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, those seeking donations are starting to more readily turn to social networking sites to seek out potential givers.  It's not sneaky - it's smart.  Considering that the biggest givers are individuals, according to GiveWell - they are reaching them right where it counts.  Plus, nonprofits and chariries are making it easy to access the information donors want, even those tear-jerking videos, and pass it along to their friends and families, who reportedly are 100 times more like to donate based on a friendly recommendation than a blind solicitation. And donating is of course, a mere click away – just as easy as shopping online.

Although this phenomenon is reportedly going to help boost donations to the philanthropic sector, we hope those donors using social networking sites for donor research are doing just that – their research. We love the accessibility, but we still need accountability. These givers should be smart enough to know that there’s more to donating than feeling good and there’s more need for the money than what might be visible on Facebook. Props to charities for meeting the donors half way.  But a reminder to donors to not take the easy way out.